Literary Lapses Page 3

  Also, drop all that cold-bath business. You never did itwhen you were a boy. Don't be a fool now. If you musttake a bath (you don't really need to), take it warm.The pleasure of getting out of a cold bed and creepinginto a hot bath beats a cold plunge to death. In anycase, stop gassing about your tub and your "shower," asif you were the only man who ever washed.

  So much for that point.

  Next, take the question of germs and bacilli. Don't bescared of them. That's all. That's the whole thing, andif you once get on to that you never need to worry again.

  If you see a bacilli, walk right up to it, and look itin the eye. If one flies into your room, strike at itwith your hat or with a towel. Hit it as hard as you canbetween the neck and the thorax. It will soon get sickof that.

  But as a matter of fact, a bacilli is perfectly quietand harmless if you are not afraid of it. Speak to it.Call out to it to "lie down." It will understand. I hada bacilli once, called Fido, that would come and lie atmy feet while I was working. I never knew a moreaffectionate companion, and when it was run over by anautomobile, I buried it in the garden with genuine sorrow.

  (I admit this is an exaggeration. I don't really rememberits name; it may have been Robert.)

  Understand that it is only a fad of modern medicine tosay that cholera and typhoid and diphtheria are causedby bacilli and germs; nonsense. Cholera is caused by afrightful pain in the stomach, and diphtheria is causedby trying to cure a sore throat.

  Now take the question of food.

  Eat what you want. Eat lots of it. Yes, eat too much ofit. Eat till you can just stagger across the room withit and prop it up against a sofa cushion. Eat everythingthat you like until you can't eat any more. The only testis, can you pay for it? If you can't pay for it, don'teat it. And listen--don't worry as to whether your foodcontains starch, or albumen, or gluten, or nitrogen. Ifyou are a damn fool enough to want these things, go andbuy them and eat all you want of them. Go to a laundryand get a bag of starch, and eat your fill of it. Eatit, and take a good long drink of glue after it, and aspoonful of Portland cement. That will gluten you, goodand solid.

  If you like nitrogen, go and get a druggist to give youa canful of it at the soda counter, and let you sip itwith a straw. Only don't think that you can mix all thesethings up with your food. There isn't any nitrogen orphosphorus or albumen in ordinary things to eat. In anydecent household all that sort of stuff is washed out inthe kitchen sink before the food is put on the table.

  And just one word about fresh air and exercise. Don'tbother with either of them. Get your room full of goodair, then shut up the windows and keep it. It will keepfor years. Anyway, don't keep using your lungs all thetime. Let them rest. As for exercise, if you have to takeit, take it and put up with it. But as long as you havethe price of a hack and can hire other people to playbaseball for you and run races and do gymnastics whenyou sit in the shade and smoke and watch them--greatheavens, what more do you want?

  How to Avoid Getting Married

  Some years ago, when I was the Editor of a CorrespondenceColumn, I used to receive heart-broken letters from youngmen asking for advice and sympathy. They found themselvesthe object of marked attentions from girls which theyscarcely knew how to deal with. They did not wish to givepain or to seem indifferent to a love which they feltwas as ardent as it was disinterested, and yet they feltthat they could not bestow their hands where their heartshad not spoken. They wrote to me fully and frankly, andas one soul might write to another for relief. I acceptedtheir confidences as under the pledge of a secrecy, neverdivulging their disclosures beyond the circulation of mynewspapers, or giving any hint of their identity otherthan printing their names and addresses and their lettersin full. But I may perhaps without dishonour reproduceone of these letters, and my answer to it, inasmuch asthe date is now months ago, and the softening hand ofTime has woven its roses--how shall I put it?--the mellowhaze of reminiscences has--what I mean is that the youngman has gone back to work and is all right again.

  Here then is a letter from a young man whose name I mustnot reveal, but whom I will designate as D. F., and whoseaddress I must not divulge, but will simply indicate asQ. Street, West.

  "DEAR MR. LEACOCK,

  "For some time past I have been the recipient of verymarked attentions from a young lady. She has been callingat the house almost every evening, and has taken me outin her motor, and invited me to concerts and the theatre.On these latter occasions I have insisted on her takingmy father with me, and have tried as far as possible toprevent her saying anything to me which would be unfitfor father to hear. But my position has become a verydifficult one. I do not think it right to accept herpresents when I cannot feel that my heart is hers.Yesterday she sent to my house a beautiful bouquet ofAmerican Beauty roses addressed to me, and a magnificentbunch of Timothy Hay for father. I do not know what tosay. Would it be right for father to keep all this valuablehay? I have confided fully in father, and we have discussedthe question of presents. He thinks that there are somethat we can keep with propriety, and others that a senseof delicacy forbids us to retain. He himself is going tosort out the presents into the two classes. He thinksthat as far as he can see, the Hay is in class B. MeantimeI write to you, as I understand that Miss Laura JeanLibby and Miss Beatrix Fairfax are on their vacation,and in any case a friend of mine who follows their writingsclosely tells me that they are always full.

  "I enclose a dollar, because I do not think it right toask you to give all your valuable time and your bestthought without giving you back what it is worth."

  On receipt of this I wrote back at once a private andconfidential letter which I printed in the followingedition of the paper.

  "MY DEAR, DEAR BOY,

  "Your letter has touched me. As soon as I opened it andsaw the green and blue tint of the dollar bill which youhad so daintily and prettily folded within the pages ofyour sweet letter, I knew that the note was from someonethat I could learn to love, if our correspondence wereto continue as it had begun. I took the dollar from yourletter and kissed and fondled it a dozen times. Dearunknown boy! I shall always keep that dollar! No matterhow much I may need it, or how many necessaries, yes,absolute necessities, of life I may be wanting, I shallalways keep THAT dollar. Do you understand, dear? I shallkeep it. I shall not spend it. As far as the USE of itgoes, it will be just as if you had not sent it. Even ifyou were to send me another dollar, I should still keepthe first one, so that no matter how many you sent, therecollection of one first friendship would not becontaminated with mercenary considerations. When I saydollar, darling, of course an express order, or a postalnote, or even stamps would be all the same. But in thatcase do not address me in care of this office, as I shouldnot like to think of your pretty little letters lyinground where others might handle them.

  "But now I must stop chatting about myself, for I knowthat you cannot be interested in a simple old fogey suchas I am. Let me talk to you about your letter and aboutthe difficult question it raises for all marriageableyoung men.

  "In the first place, let me tell you how glad I am thatyou confide in your father. Whatever happens, go at onceto your father, put your arms about his neck, and havea good cry together. And you are right, too, aboutpresents. It needs a wiser head than my poor perplexedboy to deal with them. Take them to your father to besorted, or, if you feel that you must not overtax hislove, address them to me in your own pretty hand.

  "And now let us talk, dear, as one heart to another.Remember always that if a girl is to have your heart shemust be worthy of you. When you look at your own brightinnocent face in the mirror, resolve that you will giveyour hand to no girl who is not just as innocent as youare and no brighter than yourself. So that you must firstfind out how innocent she is. Ask her quietly andfrankly--remember, dear, that the days of false modestyare passing away--whether she has ever been in jail. Ifshe has not (and if YOU have not), then you know thatyou are dealing with a dear confiding girl who will makeyou a life mate. Then you must know, too, that her mindis worthy o
f your own. So many men to-day are led astrayby the merely superficial graces and attractions of girlswho in reality possess no mental equipment at all. Manya man is bitterly disillusioned after marriage when herealises that his wife cannot solve a quadratic equation,and that he is compelled to spend all his days with awoman who does not know that X squared plus 2XY plus Ysquared is the same thing, or, I think nearly the samething, as X plus Y squared.

  "Nor should the simple domestic virtues be neglected. Ifa girl desires to woo you, before allowing her to pressher suit, ask her if she knows how to press yours. Ifshe can, let her woo; if not, tell her to whoa. But Isee I have written quite as much as I need for thiscolumn. Won't you write again, just as before, dear boy?

  "STEPHEN LEACOCK."

  How to be a Doctor

  Certainly the progress of science is a wonderful thing.One can't help feeling proud of it. I must admit that Ido. Whenever I get talking to anyone--that is, to anyonewho knows even less about it than I do--about the marvellousdevelopment of electricity, for instance, I feel as ifI had been personally responsible for it. As for thelinotype and the aeroplane and the vacuum house-cleaner,well, I am not sure that I didn't invent them myself. Ibelieve that all generous-hearted men feel just the sameway about it.

  However, that is not the point I am intending to discuss.What I want to speak about is the progress of medicine.There, if you like, is something wonderful. Any lover ofhumanity (or of either sex of it) who looks back on theachievements of medical science must feel his heart glowand his right ventricle expand with the pericardiacstimulus of a permissible pride.

  Just think of it. A hundred years ago there were nobacilli, no ptomaine poisoning, no diphtheria, and noappendicitis. Rabies was but little known, and onlyimperfectly developed. All of these we owe to medicalscience. Even such things as psoriasis and parotitis andtrypanosomiasis, which are now household names, wereknown only to the few, and were quite beyond the reachof the great mass of the people.

  Or consider the advance of the science on its practicalside. A hundred years ago it used to be supposed thatfever could be cured by the letting of blood; now we knowpositively that it cannot. Even seventy years ago it wasthought that fever was curable by the administration ofsedative drugs; now we know that it isn't. For the matterof that, as recently as thirty years ago, doctors thoughtthat they could heal a fever by means of low diet andthe application of ice; now they are absolutely certainthat they cannot. This instance shows the steady progressmade in the treatment of fever. But there has been thesame cheering advance all along the line. Take rheumatism.A few generations ago people with rheumatism used to haveto carry round potatoes in their pockets as a means ofcure. Now the doctors allow them to carry absolutelyanything they like. They may go round with their pocketsfull of water-melons if they wish to. It makes nodifference. Or take the treatment of epilepsy. It usedto be supposed that the first thing to do in suddenattacks of this kind was to unfasten the patient's collarand let him breathe; at present, on the contrary, manydoctors consider it better to button up the patient'scollar and let him choke.

  In only one respect has there been a decided lack ofprogress in the domain of medicine, that is in the timeit takes to become a qualified practitioner. In the goodold days a man was turned out thoroughly equipped afterputting in two winter sessions at a college and spendinghis summers in running logs for a sawmill. Some of thestudents were turned out even sooner. Nowadays it takesanywhere from five to eight years to become a doctor. Ofcourse, one is willing to grant that our young men aregrowing stupider and lazier every year. This fact willbe corroborated at once by any man over fifty years ofage. But even when this is said it seems odd that a manshould study eight years now to learn what he used toacquire in eight months.

  However, let that go. The point I want to develop is thatthe modern doctor's business is an extremely simple one,which could be acquired in about two weeks. This is theway it is done.

  The patient enters the consulting-room. "Doctor," hesays, "I have a bad pain." "Where is it?" "Here." "Standup," says the doctor, "and put your arms up above yourhead." Then the doctor goes behind the patient and strikeshim a powerful blow in the back. "Do you feel that," hesays. "I do," says the patient. Then the doctor turnssuddenly and lets him have a left hook under the heart."Can you feel that," he says viciously, as the patientfalls over on the sofa in a heap. "Get up," says thedoctor, and counts ten. The patient rises. The doctorlooks him over very carefully without speaking, and thensuddenly fetches him a blow in the stomach that doubleshim up speechless. The doctor walks over to the windowand reads the morning paper for a while. Presently heturns and begins to mutter more to himself than thepatient. "Hum!" he says, "there's a slight anaesthesiaof the tympanum." "Is that so?" says the patient, in anagony of fear. "What can I do about it, doctor?" "Well,"says the doctor, "I want you to keep very quiet; you'llhave to go to bed and stay there and keep quiet." Inreality, of course, the doctor hasn't the least idea whatis wrong with the man; but he DOES know that if he willgo to bed and keep quiet, awfully quiet, he'll eitherget quietly well again or else die a quiet death. Meantime,if the doctor calls every morning and thumps and beatshim, he can keep the patient submissive and perhaps forcehim to confess what is wrong with him.

  "What about diet, doctor?" says the patient, completelycowed.

  The answer to this question varies very much. It dependson how the doctor is feeling and whether it is long sincehe had a meal himself. If it is late in the morning andthe doctor is ravenously hungry, he says: "Oh, eat plenty,don't be afraid of it; eat meat, vegetables, starch,glue, cement, anything you like." But if the doctor hasjust had lunch and if his breathing is short-circuitedwith huckleberry-pie, he says very firmly: "No, I don'twant you to eat anything at all: absolutely not a bite;it won't hurt you, a little self-denial in the matter ofeating is the best thing in the world."

  "And what about drinking?" Again the doctor's answervaries. He may say: "Oh, yes, you might drink a glass oflager now and then, or, if you prefer it, a gin and sodaor a whisky and Apollinaris, and I think before going tobed I'd take a hot Scotch with a couple of lumps of whitesugar and bit of lemon-peel in it and a good grating ofnutmeg on the top." The doctor says this with real feeling,and his eye glistens with the pure love of his profession.But if, on the other hand, the doctor has spent the nightbefore at a little gathering of medical friends, he isvery apt to forbid the patient to touch alcohol in anyshape, and to dismiss the subject with great severity.

  Of course, this treatment in and of itself would appeartoo transparent, and would fail to inspire the patientwith a proper confidence. But nowadays this element issupplied by the work of the analytical laboratory. Whateveris wrong with the patient, the doctor insists on snippingoff parts and pieces and extracts of him and sending themmysteriously away to be analysed. He cuts off a lock ofthe patient's hair, marks it, "Mr. Smith's Hair, October,1910." Then he clips off the lower part of the ear, andwraps it in paper, and labels it, "Part of Mr. Smith'sEar, October, 1910." Then he looks the patient up anddown, with the scissors in his hand, and if he sees anylikely part of him he clips it off and wraps it up. Nowthis, oddly enough, is the very thing that fills thepatient up with that sense of personal importance whichis worth paying for. "Yes," says the bandaged patient,later in the day to a group of friends much impressed,"the doctor thinks there may be a slight anaesthesia ofthe prognosis, but he's sent my ear to New York and myappendix to Baltimore and a lock of my hair to the editorsof all the medical journals, and meantime I am to keepvery quiet and not exert myself beyond drinking a hotScotch with lemon and nutmeg every half-hour." With thathe sinks back faintly on his cushions, luxuriously happy.

  And yet, isn't it funny?

  You and I and the rest of us--even if we know all this--assoon as we have a pain within us, rush for a doctor asfast as a hack can take us. Yes, personally, I even preferan ambulance with a bell on it. It's more soothing.

  The New Food

  I see from the current columns of the daily pre
ss that"Professor Plumb, of the University of Chicago, has justinvented a highly concentrated form of food. All theessential nutritive elements are put together in the formof pellets, each of which contains from one to two hundredtimes as much nourishment as an ounce of an ordinaryarticle of diet. These pellets, diluted with water, willform all that is necessary to support life. The professorlooks forward confidently to revolutionizing the presentfood system."

  Now this kind of thing may be all very well in its way,but it is going to have its drawbacks as well. In thebright future anticipated by Professor Plumb, we caneasily imagine such incidents as the following:

  The smiling family were gathered round the hospitableboard. The table was plenteously laid with a soup-platein front of each beaming child, a bucket of hot waterbefore the radiant mother, and at the head of the boardthe Christmas dinner of the happy home, warmly coveredby a thimble and resting on a poker chip. The expectantwhispers of the little ones were hushed as the father,rising from his chair, lifted the thimble and discloseda small pill of concentrated nourishment on the chipbefore him. Christmas turkey, cranberry sauce, plumpudding, mince pie--it was all there, all jammed intothat little pill and only waiting to expand. Then thefather with deep reverence, and a devout eye alternatingbetween the pill and heaven, lifted his voice in abenediction.